The present invention relates to a chain drum hub for a tracked vehicle, a dredge, or the like.
Hubs of the type to which the invention pertains are, for example, constructed for being two-fold journaled while being connected to the drive shaft of a motive power source and drive. Furthermore, a power-branching transmission gear of the planetary type is provided.
Hubs of the type to which the invention pertains are, for example, traded under the name MOBILEX and described in brochures of Lohmann & Stolterfoht GmbH, Witten, List No. 631, I/78, and List No. 618, VIII/78. In these particular constructions, the hub is only indirectly journaled by means of the drive shaft; the latter is journaled in a hollow case and housing portion while the hub is placed onto that shaft and secured thereto. The two bearings are situated to both sides of a planetary gearing. Forces resulting from radial and axial loads are, thus, reacted into the gearing which is an undesirable feature. The gearing must be designed to takes up these forces.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,469,647 discloses a particular combination for a steering wheel, the steering column and a planetary gearing. In this particular construction, there is also a pair of bearings, one of them journaling the planet carrier to the case carrying the internal ring gear while the shaft, as connected to the sun gear, is separately journaled to that case by the second bearing of the pair. This principle is not applicable to dredge drums and related equipment because the hub for such a drum is insufficiently supported by just one set of bearings.
German petty patent 70 25 197 is of some additional peripheral interest.